For years, I have been saying that the best gifts are experiences, not things (see Better Ways to Spend and Putting the Holidays in Perspective). Now it seems that the rest of the country has caught up to me. The storage company SpareFoot has just released the results of a survey: “79 percent of the U.S. population, and 89 percent of millennials, say they never use some of the gifts they receive each year.” As a result, “a whopping 81 percent…
Read more →Like many residents of New York City, I don’t own a car. If I want to get somewhere, I can walk, use public transportation, or take a taxi (in ascending order of cost). Depending on the time of day and the distance, any one of those can be faster than the other two. NYC taxis became more convenient in recent years when they installed credit card machines. This made it much easier to pay without having to fumble for cash,…
Read more →I help many of my clients with prioritizing their time and getting things done. Naturally, the subject of procrastination comes up frequently. (For a quick video of me speaking about procrastination, see my web site.) I’m reading a very interesting book right now with the amusing title, “The Big Thing: How to Complete Your Creative Project Even If You’re a Lazy, Self-Doubting Procrastinator Like Me.” Author Phyllis Korkki talks about procrastination in a way I hadn’t thought about before. When you procrastinate,…
Read more →Back in June, I wrote about a project on which I had done a good bit of procrastinating (see A Blessing and A Curse). To refresh your memory on the salient details, I was asked to record a 90-minute class I had delivered at a NAPO conference 6 years earlier, so that the class could be made available as part of NAPO’s educational offerings. I put it off and put it off, and finally got it done by setting myself…
Read more →When my father passed away last year and we shut down his apartment, I submitted a forwarding order to the post office so that mail coming to anyone named Lowenheim at that address would be forwarded to me. I’ve since learned that the Postal Service makes about $8 million a year licensing its change of address data. Not only am I getting marketing solicitations for my father, I am also receiving junk mail for my mother, who passed away 4 1/2 years…
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